It’s not like David Gourlay is turning his back on a lot of money as he steps away from his post as the president of the Ottawa Champions Baseball Club,

However, for Gourlay, whose resignation came on the sixth anniversary of him establishing a community-driven movement — the Champions for Ottawa Baseball — it was never really about money. It was always about the 47-year-old’s passion for baseball, his love for a sport he fell in love with as a kid.

“I’m not an employee here, everyone thinks I am,” Gourlay, a business consultant, said Friday. “I’ve never received a single salary dollar here. I’ve been a pure volunteer for the past six years. It’s not a resignation in terms of leaving a job, it’s a resignation in terms of leaving a role.”

Gourlay has been a baseball fan for what seems like forever.

“I’m looking at my wall at the stadium, I’m looking at Bill Spaceman Lee, Ellis Valentine, Chris Speier, Warren Cromartie and Andre Dawson,” he said. “The Montreal Expos were my heart. I remember going to my first game. My parents took me to the Big O, 1981, to see a Pittsburgh Pirates doubleheader. Willie Stargell and Tony Pena, I can still see it in my head … the mustard-yellow jerseys. I fell in love with the game and it’s been with me ever since. I hope to pass that on to (2 1/2-year-old daughter) Sophia. She’s got a helluva baseball card collection. I hope she doesn’t sell it off.”

Working with Champions manager Hal Lanier, a long-time major-league baseball player, coach and manager, is another memory that will stick.

Said Gourlay: “After a game, I’d go into his office, we’d have a beer and talk about the game that had just been played. He’s analyzing every pitch, every swing of the bat … on both sides, the home team and the away team. Then he’d talk about his days with Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal. When you’re a baseball fan, you love that stuff. You listen, you really learn about the complexity of baseball from a guy who knows it. We’re so lucky to have him here.”

Gourlay had a small stake in ownership, but that will go to majority owner Miles Wolff.

“It’s a bittersweet day,” Gourlay said. “Here we are going into Year 4. I felt I’d made my maximum contribution at this point in time. I’ll remain a very active fan. Yes, it’s a hard day. I’ve really enjoyed this. It has been a big part of me. There are other things for me to do, there are other contributions I’d like to make.”

For Gourlay, there have been several highlights.

“It really started back in 2012. I’ll go back six years ago to this very day, when my first phone call was to Jim Durrell. I said, ‘Mr. Durrell, you’ve made such amazing contributions to this community in sports. I’d really like you to work with me on this Champions for Ottawa Baseball.’ That continued through to us getting the team, opening the Miracle League, a fully accessible baseball diamond out in Orléans, hosting the all-star game last year. We started a charitable foundation and we’re opening the Hall of Fame and Exhibit upstairs in the ballpark. There are so many highlights. The best one, of course, is the (Can-Am League) championship. Walking out on that field in Rockland, N.Y., and hoisting the trophy two years after we’d started … I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to replicate that memory.”

There have also been roadblocks. Sometimes it was one step ahead and two back.

“There have been frustrations,” Gourlay said. “I’m at the ballpark, looking out at the snow and I think about the weather, something we can’t control. We’re the only professional sports team in Ottawa that is completely dependent on the weather, not only whether we can play a game, but (also) the fans will stay away if it’s been raining or if the sky is grey. We had amazing weather in 2016. Our attendance, our ticket revenue and our concession revenue reflected that. Last year was such a bad summer and the revenues reflected that. It’s a cause and effect relationship that we had no control over.”

“It takes a lot of time, particularly in the summer months,” Gourlay said. “Danielle and Sophia came to the ballpark a fair amount over the past two summers. You want to enjoy your summer, you want to enjoy your family time. The job that I had here, I was here five or six hours in the evenings, staying late at night.”

As winter blends into spring and summer, Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton Park will once again host the Champions. For Gourlay, the ballpark will always have a special aura.

“The natural grass is such a source of pride for us,” he said. “The fans tell us never go to turf. The national grass is such a traditional aspect of the game. You go there, you can smell it, you can smell that it’s baseball: the popcorn, the hot dogs, the beer. For a ballpark, you get the summer smells, it’s very distinct. Maybe it’s just my nose, a baseball fan’s nose.”

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